Tag: Green Rock Correctional

“Wellness in the Age of Political Uncertainty and Extremism”

By Danny Thomas

As Virginians, we are still reeling from the shocking loss of political fairness and equality with the election of Youngkin and Miyares. Even today, I find myself asking what if McCauliffe hadn’t commented that “parents don’t have a right to dictate their children’s education.” You could clearly see his momentum wane by the second – as he also recognized this and brought in the “big guns” like Obama and national figures in the education realm in an attempt to repair the damage accrued by this statement.

In any event, this constant shifting of the political winds has created angst in the hearts and minds of so many, particularly minorities of all kinds, especially the prisoner’s of Virginia and their families. Consider the fact that at least 500 men and women housed in Virginia D.O.C. were excited for the opportunity to be released from prison only to have this moment snatched away at the 11th hour. I can recall the anxiety I felt after serving 20 years in maximum security with the expectation that I’d be shipped to a medium, only to have it snatched away. I can only imagine what it feels like to expect your freedom then have it taken from you to serve political interests.

Consider the children expecting their parent to come home only to suffer the gravest of disappointment. It is difficult enough to explain to young children that you’re away from them because you did something that you shouldn’t have, then plan your reunion, then build their expectations only to find yourself letting them down again. Psychologically, the idea of defeat is ever present and the circumstances we live under will either nourish the defeat or starve it – unfortunately incarceration provides a full course meal for the defeatist mind.

It is astonishing that so many of us and our families are able to thrive in spite of the pervasive nature of ” learned helplessness.” The incarceration of family becomes a shared experience in which both suffer separately, but equally. Although visitation and phone calls serve as a type of “numbing agent” for the soul, both are left with a hollow place in their consciousness for which their is no immediate gratification, the only remedy requires freedom from the carceral restraints that bind us yet separate.

Our knowledge of the carceral system will ensure that we can experience a healthy existence in spite of the enormous obstacles we face. The wellness of our selves and family is predicated on just how resilient and resolute we prove to be. There is no magic pill or how to book to mimic, the wellness we seek is born from our recognition of “the open enemy,” the politician that has industrialized crime for the sake of creating jobs in their respective districts; the one who refuses to recognize that poverty is the mother of crime and not genetics as many of them would presume.

The sure strategy against this pathology is our education and advocacy against the system that seeks to break our will and define us as a valueless people. In the words of the immortal Nelson Mandela, “the attack of the wild beast cannot be averted with bare hands.”

In Struggle,

Danny Thomas, #1054249
Green Rock Correctional

Taxation Without Representation

Formerly Incarcerated Citizens and Civil / Political Disability

By Danny Ray Thomas

When returning citizens reenter society, probation and parole expects us to immediately find employment and begin the process of developing as productive citizens. Our paychecks have the same withholdings just as anyone else in the workforce. By April 15th of every year, we’re required to have our taxes filed, and if we’re lucky we’ll get a refund. In other instances, we’re told we owe money or funds are withheld for child support or other debts the state or federal government have made claims to.

What has always concerned me is the fact that we can be taxed as anyone else without restoration, yet we cannot vote without permission. Our tax dollars will assist in funding schools and first responders, ironically our tax dollars also pay the probation officer who’ll violate us and send us back to prison where our taxes will also pay the corrections officers and prison officials who’ll stand watch over us.

Well after incarcerated citizens complete their sentence, we remain “civilly disabled.” Why is it that we lose the right to determine which legislators and other politicians determine what’s best for the communities we live in? This is clearly “retribution,” which is considered one of the (4) four goals of incarceration, the other three being, societal protection, deterrence, and punishment. In some instances, the Courts have referenced “rehabilitation” as a fifth, but refuting that fallacy would be encyclopedic in length.

In any event, we remain “civiliter mortuus” (civilly dead) to the state which not only impacts our right to vote on the local level. Clearly this makes no sense. Again, we don’t have to prove ourselves to pay taxes yet we must do so to vote. I’d love to hear Governor Youngkin’s answer to this question; better yet, I’d like to be a fly on the wall when he’s discussing this issue behind closed doors!

Governor Youngkin is empowered to remove what the Courts refer to as “political disabilities,” but not all rights lost as a result of a felony conviction, for instance, the jurisdiction to restore firearm rights lost in those circumstances is vested in the circuit court. The Virginia Constitution allows the Governor of Virginia to individually restore political rights of convicted felons without judicial review, see the
Va. Constitution article V, section 12.

Restoration of the right to vote, hold public office, to serve on a jury, or be notary public does not constitute an inherent danger to public safety or does it? Maybe this is true for those in power that realize the power of the formerly incarcerated citizen.We all know that old addage “givem an inch they’ll take a mile!

Today we’ll vote, tomorrow we’ll serve on a jury, the day after we’ll hold public office. Neither aspiration of serving on a jury or holding public office can occur without the initial ability to vote. If they nullify our ability to vote, they also nullify our ability to have a direct impact on the system. It’s obvious which side of the aisle the ‘formerly incarcerated citizen’ stands on, can someone say “Progressive!”

In 2016, Governor Terry McAullife used his executive power to restore voting rights to more than 200,000 former prisoners in response to campaigns to end felony disenfranchisement. “I remain committed to moving past our Commonwealth’s history of injustice to embrace an honest process for restoring the rights of our citizens,” the governor said.”The struggle for civil rights has always been a long and difficult journey but the fight goes on.Unfortunately, republicans challenged the Governor’s executive order to The Virginia Supreme Court and the court determined that Governor McAuliffe did not have the authority to restore these rights without an individual application by each petitioner. Howell v. McAullife , 292 Va. 320.

The opposition to the restoration of voting rights to the formerly incarcerated has created an attitude of pessimism and defeat in many. My message to them is simple, “If voting doesn’t matter, why do they fight so hard to keep you from participating in the process?”

In Struggle,
D Ray Thomas, Green Rock Correctional, #1054249

My name is Danny Ray Thomas and I’ve been incarcerated for 21 years. I am from Pittsylvania county just outside of Danville, Va. I currently reside at Green Rock Correctional and I work as the Treatment aide. I work with counselors teaching anger management, thinking for a change, victim impact and ready to work.I am an activist and mentor in this community of men. I’m not one who’d shy away from the struggle we face, instead I embrace it. I’ve written for the “unlocked project,” a collaboration between the Coalition for Justice and Virginia Tech. I’ve also written for NYU ‘s review of law and social change publication called “The Harbinger,” my piece with them is called “The Calamity of Sentencing in Virginia” which can be found at http://www.socialchangenyu.com.I am also a part of NYU’s “Jailhouse Lawyer’s Initiative. Needless to say I am a student of this movement against mass incarceration and I look forwarded to collaborating with anyone who feels the same as I do.